ho sweat under the yoke of slavish
servitude, and know no alternative but an unceasing submission to the
goads of a brutal master.

Ages have revolved since this happy condition of human affairs; and
although mankind have been gradually verging from a state of
simplicity to a more social refinement, yet the governments of those
primitive times laid open an analogy for licentiousness; and we find,
by pursuing the history of man, that slavery was again introduced, and
stained the annals of all the powers of Europe.

The idea of possessing, as property, was too lucrative to be totally
eradicated; it diffused itself into Egypt and Cyprus, which became the
first and most noted markets for the sale and purchase of slaves, and
soon became the cause of rapine and bloodshed in Greece and Rome:
there it was an established custom to subject to slavery all the
captives in time of war; and not only the Emperors, but the nobility,
were in possession of thousands--to them they served as instruments of
diversion and authority.

To give an idea only of the amphitheatrical entertainments, so
repugnant to humanity, would make the most obdurate heart feel with
keen sensibility. For to hear with patience of voracious animals
being turned loose among human beings, to give sport to the rich and
great, when upon reflection, he may be assured, that the merciless jaw
knew no restraint but precipitately charged upon its prey whom it
left, without remorse, either massacred or maimed.

Such was the practice among the ancients, and to charge the modern
with like enormities, would by many be deemed criminal.

But I fear not to accuse them--the prosecution of the present
barbarous and iniquitous slave trade affords us too many instances of
cruelties exercised against the harmless Africans. A trade, which,
after it was abolished in Europe by the general introduction of
Christianity, was again renewed about the fourteenth century by the
mercenary Portuguese, and now prosecuted by the Spaniards, French and
British, in defiance of every principle of justice, humanity and
religion.

Ye moderns, will you not blush at degenerating into ancient barbarity,
and at wearing the garb of Christians, when you pursue the practices
of savages?

Hasten to reform, and put an end to this unnatural and destructive
trade--Do you not know that thousands of your fellow-mortals are
annually entombed by it? and that it proves ruinous to your
government? You go to Afr